BALTIMORE — New concerns over Baltimore City's handling of towed vehicles.
A Biennial Performance Audit from fiscal years 2022 and 2023 uncovered high levels of disorganization potentially leading to wasteful spending.
Auditors evaluated Baltimore Police and the Department of Transportation's processing methods.
Police often tow cars belonging to crime suspects or victims for investigation purposes.
Officers are required to order a tow through dispatch.
The City contracts various tow companies at specific rates for around the clock services.
According to the agreement, tow trucks are to respond within 20 minutes of being requested.
The audit revealed tow companies often showed up late, without police enforcing response time limits.
In turn officers spent more time waiting on scene, technically costing the City money and resources.
Police regularly have vehicles towed to their districts or headquarters for processing.
In this case, the police department is responsible for processing towing invoices.
The audit found inconsistencies in how police maintain documentation of those invoices.
"The Department of Audits’ review indicated that BPD was not able to provide towing bills to substantiate five out of 11 invoices (or 45 percent) totaling $19,176," auditors wrote in their report.
Baltimore Police blamed low staffing and shortage of tow trucks on the lack of record keeping.
In the event a car is towed to the City impound lot, the Department of Transportation is in charge of invoices.
They too weren't always on top of things.
"The DOT does not clearly and completely communicate critical information to vehicle owners to claim their vehicles in an efficient manner, which may result in delays in releasing vehicles to owners efficiently," the audit says.
Auditors attempted to review 26 notification letters to owners whose vehicles were going up for auction, but the Department of Transportation couldn't provide receipts of those letters being sent.
Some receipts the department did keep lacked important information such as proof of ownership and owner identification.
"We have identified that there are some slight filing challenges due to the Towing Division’s displacement from the Administration Building," DOT responded. "This has been addressed and corrected by creating storage space and a labelling system. Additionally, the newly rehabilitated administration building will be furnished with large card filing cabinets that will incorporate complete property numbers allowing the cards to be arranged properly."
Other issues of vehicle tracking were noted as well.
"75 out of 165 vehicles, or 45 percent were found to be in a different location than what was recorded on the inventory list," auditors noted.
The Department of Transportation said they've addressed problems in the report.
"We have identified and changed the vehicle entry process thus addressing the vehicle location error concerns."
Read the full audit here.
